Friday, May 31, 2013

Golden Dream

My posts are a little spotty lately because I've been spending so much time on the new Pictorial Arts Journal that will soon be rolling out its premier prototype. I will be posting about the Journal soon, and looking for a little advice about website formatting. 

In the meantime I'll keep posting when I can, such as this dreamy (literally) image from the Golden Age of Illustration.

Jessie M. King — Love's Golden Dream — 1913

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Curatives for the Soul

Can't you just feel the gentle warmth, the fragrant breeze, the peace and tranquility? Meditating on infused images like this can be curatives for the soul.

Harold Knight — The Morning Sun — circa 1912

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Magnificent Big Cat

A magnificent portrait of a magnificent big cat . . .

Jack Murray — The Saturday Evening Post — August 29, 1931

Thursday, May 23, 2013

The Wizard Prince of Arabia — WOW

I'm not really fond of circuses as we generally know them, with clowns and acrobats and such. But  THE WIZARDRY, WONDERS & MAGIC of THE ORIENT in A NEW WORDLESS PLAY of OPULENT GRANDEUR, with 1250 Actors and Actresses, 300 Dancing Girls, 350 Persons Playing Musical Intruments, 250 Singers in Weird Oriental Choruses and 3250 Costly Costumes is gonna pique my interest and I'll be back to see this show every day it's in town, you betcha!

Barnum & Bailey — The Wizard Prince of Arabia — 1914

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Faraway Places

Yes boys, even girls have dreams of adventure in faraway places . . .

The American Girl — November 1930


Monday, May 20, 2013

Ever Fabulous

Here's another one of those seldom seen preliminary studies by the ever fabulous Mucha from the ever fabulous Art Nouveau period.

Alphonse Mucha — preliminary study for an illustration — 1898

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Lovely Texture

There is a lovely texture to this landscape image . . .

Ludwig Jungnickel — stencil landscape — circa 1905

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Poetic but Fearsome

 The last post showed a late 19th century vision of a young faun. Here is a an early 21st century vision of a mature faun, of course from Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Fauns are poetic but fearsome (unpredictable) creatures.

Doug Jones as the Faun — Pan's Labyrinth — 2006

Friday, May 17, 2013

Der Fliegenfänger

I'm posting this image of an interesting sculpture if nothing more than because I like typing and saying its name, and interestingly enough seems to translate as 'The Flypaper'.

Karl Seffner — Der Fliegenfänger — circa 1898

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Don't Let Yourself Be Trapped

Women, don't let yourself be trapped into a relationship with a pig, no matter how handsome or charming he may be . . .

Wilhelm Volz — 1902

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Wonderfullly Soft, Strictly Natural

I have a deep thirst.

Noyer — Source Brault — 1938

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Special Representative


Mike Deodato — Wonder Woman — © DC Comics

Thank you Diana, your help would be most welcome!


Monday, May 13, 2013

Wunderhorn

This boy is having entirely too much fun with his magical horn.

after Moritz von Schwind — Des Knaben Wunderhorn — 1879

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Moms the Word

This is late on the date, but I'm not going to wait a year to post this sweet drawing by Picasso, back when he drew recognizable people. 

Happy Mother's Day to all you great moms and Mr. moms.

Pablo Picasso — Mother and Child

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Dragon-Fly

This pose is a tiny bit like arcadian artist Larry MacDougall might do, but Larry's rendering would be 40 jillion times better.

Nicole-August Laurens — Dragon-Fly — 1889

Friday, May 10, 2013

Les Graces Enseignant

Okay children, now pay attention to your teachers . . . 

Frorent — The Graces Teaching — 1883

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Belated Lament

A (slightly) belated lament for the passing of Ray Harryhausen, seen here stop-motion animating Mighty Joe Young in 1949.


Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Diamond's Are Forever

The other night, we watched a new DVD of an old Bond flick, Diamonds are Forever. We could hardly get through it — it being slow-paced, boring and poorly acted. Oh we loved Sean Connery alright, but we've been spoiled by modern action movie-making that is superbly timed and paced. I guess it was Lucas and Spielberg that set the bar for action. As a kid I was enthralled with the Connery Bond movies, but now it's the Daniel Craig Bond movies that I enjoy (though Connery will always be THE 'Bond, James Bond' for me).

Diamonds are Forever — poster

Yummy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALL YOU TAURUS PEOPLE!

For what it's worth, here is a shot of a portion of my deep sea fish birthday cake. We'd already eaten part of the tales and fins, because they were a little wobbly. Even working day and night shifts at two jobs, my daughter still wanted to make this cake for me—and it tastes even better than it looks! And my wife made a lovely real fish dinner, even though I'm not a Pisces.

I'm a lucky lucky guy to have a wife and daughter like I do.

A yummy birthday!

Monday, May 6, 2013

'Appendectomy' . . . Right

What the heck. I'm gonna post this pic every year on this date . . .

Her "supposed" appendectomy . . .

UPDATE:

I'm sorry folks, I guess I should have done this on April Fool's Day, except then it wouldn't have made any sense at all, at least to me.

I received a nice email from a person who was concerned about the 'facts', as he uses MM's appendectomy as part of his medical lectures. This is part of the note I sent back to him:


I'm sorry for any confusion. It was a stupid conceit on my part. 

Several years ago I posted this picture with a tongue in cheek reference that "MM and I were in a hospital on the same day. She was getting her appendix removed, and I was being born. Coincidence? You decide", kind of thing. Cuz, well, that WAS the day I was born.

My blog takes flights of fancy here and there, and with this post I was hoping to amuse people who were in the know. 

Sorry for the Delineated conceit. In fact, I'm going to use the very words above as a disclaimer on the post.


Corresponding from Another Dimension

Ah, 1972. I was in the Army, but had lots of down time, hanging out with my hippy friends, some of them in the Army too. It's not just long hair that makes a hippy. It's an attitude, and so many of my Army buddies were drafted (forced) into the armed forces and there was just as much dope and stuff in the military as out. 

For short breaks, the underground comics were our readings of choice, and several of us artsy types tried our hand at drawing the underground style. Dave Sheridan and Fred Schrier were our idols for that kind of work. Crumb was good, but seemed a bit brown shoe for our efforts to emulate. Shelton was good too, but didn't seem stoned enough, maybe he seemed too vaudevillian and slapstick. 

Whereas Sheridan and Schrier seemed like they were corresponding from another dimension. Here, Sheridan has drawn some phunny money that was used for promotional handouts, and in a pinch could be used to roll your own smokes, this one surviving somehow.


 Above and below, Dave Sheridan's front and back of the phunny money.

Friday, May 3, 2013

Unique Personalities

I love these sorts of photo portraits, and by that, I guess I mean of unique personalities confidently showing their eccentricities and connecting through the camera lens to us folks in the far future.

photo by d'Ora of the artist Tsuguharu Foujita — 1928

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Spirit of the Garden

We've had some more snow hereabouts, but gardening is on our minds (with some of our earlier planting gone to frozen hell). 

This is a painting called The Spirit of the Garden, which doesn't look very green and seems a bit off-topic to its title, but can maybe still raise our spirits a bit.

Robert Lewis Reid — The Spirit of the Garden